Microsoft Surface Pro 128GB will only offer 83GB of storage

Full-HD tablet needs 45GB of system memory

With the Microsoft Surface RT needing 13GB of storage for the RT version of Windows 8, it would appear as though Windows 8 Pro is even more storage hungry

According to a statement from Microsoft, the Surface Pro 128GB tablet will only offer 83GB of storage space for users, with the operating system and pre-installed software taking up the rest of the space, 45GB in total.

The statement coincides with recent rumours suggesting Apple is to release a new, bigger version of the iPad 4 with 128GB of storage. The new iPad 4 is also rumoured to support Apple's very-own Retina display.

While it is true that the 83GB on offer is significantly more than the space offered by other tablet devices currently on sale, which typically offer around64GB, it is still a considerable drop compared to the figure actually being advertised by Microsoft.

Should the 64GB version of the updated Surface Pro contain the same operating system and pre-installed software specifications, the entry-level Surface Pro could come with as little as 19GB of available storage.

The corporation did, however, reveal that the new Surface Pro will offer a free SkyDrive cloud storage account with 7GB of web-based storage, in addition to a USB 3.0 port, increasing the potential memory considerably, with external USB hard drives now available with more than a terabyte of storage space.

The new Surface Pro will swap out the low-power ARM processor used in the Surface RT, for a meatier Intel processor, while upgrading the Windows RT operating system to a full-fat installation of Windows 8.

This news is unlikely to persuade iPad or Android users to convert to the Microsoft alternative, with the company rumoured to have sold as few as 230,000 worldwide of the Surface RT, the first tablet Microsoft had ever produced.